


Should Have

by wallofglass



Category: Holby City
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:21:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallofglass/pseuds/wallofglass
Summary: John and Henrik at the dying of the light.





	Should Have

“It’s you, Henrik. It’s always been about you.”

“No—what do you—?”

“I love you. I’ve always loved you. I just—I wanted to impress you, I wanted—to deserve you.”

John winced in pain, his face pale and and screwed up under a layer of shining sweat.

“John, let me—“ Henrik tried to reach for something, anything, to stem the blood.

“No don’t, please. Please.” John gripped at Henrik’s shirt, blood soaking into both of their clothes, pulling Henrik back down to him. The effort made him shudder with pain, hot, fresh blood seeping out, streaking his arm with spidery trails, like his body had been turned inside out, his veins exposed. Unable to do anything else, Henrik settled John onto his lap, holding his head up, cradling him. John’s eyes never left Henrik’s face.

“I love you,” he said again. Henrik frowned, shook his head, baffled as ever at the way John’s mind worked.

“You didn’t have to do any of this, John. You should have just told me.”

“You would have rejected me.”

Henrik shook his head again, leaning closer down towards John.

“You don’t know that. I don’t—you should have told me.”

John’s body convulsed again, and Henrik begged silently to help him with hands stroking his face, and eyes pleading. His jacket was tied tight around John’s upper arm. He had only managed one wrist properly, the other was hacked up messily, all burst capillaries and choppy skin. That one must have been second, when he was already shaking with pain, his hands slick with blood from the long, precise cut down the other wrist.

It took Henrik a moment to realise that John was trying to speak again. He leant close enough to feel stuttering breath on his face.

“Would—“ swallow, shudder, start again, “—would we have been happy?”

John’s face was contorted, the words barely able to make it past his clenched teeth. Henrik tried to smile through his watery eyes, hugging John tighter.

“Of course we would. We would be so very happy.”

A breath like a death rattle, John’s whole body tense in Henrik’s arms.

“Tell me.”

Henrik sighed shakily and tried to think straight.

“We would have spent some time in Sweden, I think. I would have shown you where I grew up. I always wanted to do that. To take you there. You would have loved the northern lights up there. I would have— I would have held you under them. Kissed you under them.”

John twitched, something close to laughter, a kind of hysteria edging through.

“We would have settled here. Or London, maybe. Somewhere with good transport links so we could visit your mum, and Rox and David. We would—have a dog—“

John groaned, pressing his face against Henrik’s thigh.

“Or a cat. Whatever you want. You would have been a famous surgeon of course, jetting off all over the world, and I would pack your suitcase and tuck little gifts into the empty spaces. And when you came home we would spend days in bed, just—just being together.”

Henrik choked, crying properly now. He knew that he was the only thing holding John onto life, that as soon as he stopped, or moved, John would slip away and be lost to him forever. He crafted an image of the life they could have had, if he had been less blind, if John had been less scared, and John’s face began to clear, the pain reaching that white hot point where it was more like numbness than feeling.

“Henrik—“ John interrupted, whispering.

“Yes?”

“We would have been happy.”

Nodding, silently, unable to speak now, Henrik lifted John’s head slightly, and kissed him, careful not to move his body. John kissed him back, open mouthed, unblinking. He tasted of blood, and he never blinked again. Henrik pressed his forehead against John’s, shared the last of his breath with another kiss, gathered up his body, finally empty of pain, and hid his face in John’s neck, holding him as fiercely in the blue glow of the wet lab as he should have done under the shimmering expanse of the northern lights.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry. i’m about 300% sure this is what’s going to happen.


End file.
